English MOTHER 3 on eBay?

Aw, you’re making my job harder! 😀

But in all seriousness, this look really iffy to me. I’m guessing someone used a device to switch out the Japanese ROM inside the cartridge with the English ROM. I don’t think it’s a bootleg (if it is, it’s the nicest bootleg I’ve ever seen). Someone should request pictures of the game in action so we can clarify whether it is in English or not.

I doubt Ebay will do much about this. Half the bootleg stuff I’ve collected is from the site (and there’s still plenty of Pokemon Arcoiris games for everyone). It’s even worse over at the Hong Kong site.

But is it even possible to write over the original ROM with new information like that on an official cartridge? Unless the outer shell of a flash cart has been replaced by the official one, but I dunno if that’s possible either. It does look like that cartridge in the auction has been damaged a little.

it says USA in the top right corner, hmmm I dunno.

I’ve come across fake DS carts at markets but I’ve never seen any fake GBA before.

I guess the only way to see if somebody has really stolen your work and selling non-offical versions of the game is to buy the damn thing =/
(but no one should, or it be supporting the theives)

Most likely it’s just the guts of a flash card with Mother 3 on it, stuck into a GBA cartridge shell, with a custom label printed on it.

and you can tell it’s a custom label – badly printed, badly cut out, not stuck on straight. also the plastic has stress marks (the white bit on the left) where it was opened up.

why not bother removing the japanese writing while adding ‘USA’ to the code?

I bought one of these years ago on eBay. Looks very similar.

There are websites where you can buy english translated copies of various games, there is an article about it here: http://blog.pricecharting.com/2011/04/terranigma-is-enigma.html .

Yup, Flash Cart stuffed inside another case. I have thought about doing this for my own uses… Granted, I would never be dumb enough to try and sell it.

Even if it IS a flash cart, wouldn’t you like to buy it? i mean, you ARE technically supporting the game by buying a cartridge. Even if it IS not Official. I’d like to buy it….

Wait! Neglect my last comment! I found the auction for that cart, and the description says that the seller doesn’t believe that it is official, and that “he” bought it on eBay a little over a year ago!

Wait! Neglect my last comment! I found the auction for that cart, and the description says that the seller doesn’t believe that it is official, and that “he” bought it on eBay a little over a year ago.

Hmm… I MAY buy it ( Pretty good price), but it does look fake…. 🙁

And yet…

…people are betting on this like no tomorrow

>I believe this is not a official game.
So the guy on the auction didn’t “create” the cart. He bought it off of eBay in the past.

Maybe he bought it off of “hackBay” by accident? 🙂

I wish it would come to America so people wouldnt have to do crap like this. 🙁

Strange that they would change the region in the corner (AGB-A3UE-USA instead of AGB-A3UJ-JPN) but not the katakana for Game Boy Advance. 😛

Why should they expect people to pay money? They can just download the ROM and translation pack.

This is an obvious fake. Hopefully Ebay will do their job and remove this as it has been reported.

As a community, I think we’re all better then this. Nobody should even think about letting people profit off of the hard work that was done in translating this.

If you want to play Mother 3 in english on real hardware, that’s fine. But do it the right way. Don’t buy some cheap knockoff on ebay, preloaded with the game.

@JAMESGHOST

You say you haven’t seen fake GBA carts? Such thing I cannot believe!!

Over here in Cali there are tons of carts like those in the flea markets, with labels that are so obviously poorly made and pretty much pirated. Gray Pokemon Ruby copies, carts that say Super Mario 4 or Donkey Kong 5, all of them with the pic poorly scaled and thus out of proportion! It’s laughable at best!!

Hey guys I just bought pokemon jade yesterday! :p
In all seriousness I would love to buy it but then I would be supporting there bad behavior.

The truth about this is….
Reggie ordered the Treehouse staff to translate MOTHER 3 in secret. Once it was done, he made 8 secret carts, and scattered around the world as gifts for Mato, even though he hadn’t met Mato before. This guy found one of those gifts, and tried to sell it on Ebay. That’s the story.

Oh, yeah, and this is a FAKEEE!!! 😀

I found this when I was on the Mother 3 page on Game Swag.

I can’t wait until whoever buys it plays it and sees the intro screen that says it’s supposed to be completely free

@6you7me
What does “supporting the game” mean to you? Looks like this game would support nothing but the seller’s income.

@JeffMan
Couldn’t have some removed the intro from the game? I haven’t looked myself but I wouldn’t doubt there’d be prepatched ROMs with the intro removed floating around.

This is a very obvious fake. If this is supposed to be a real English cart, it’s missing the ESRB rating, Nintendo logo, etc.

Also, I love how the serial is changed but there’s still Japanese in the top-right.

It’s in japanese…it’s fake!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m going to bid on it. I’ve been looking for a reproduction of Mother 3. 🙂

No one even knows if the contents are English. Everyoen is assuming that because it SAYS English, it IS English. It might be the official release with a crappy new sticker.

@Doruchan
Well the seller could be lying about it being in english, but in doing so just to get more money for his auction is against Ebay policy.

He says its in english. He says he thinks it’s unofficial(his way of letting people know its a bootleg without saying it, he’s trying not to get it taken down). The sticker is obviously a fake. And the cart looks like its been under stress, possibly from having been taken apart and put back together.

If it looks like a Mad Duck, decreases PP like a Mad Duck, and sometimes drops a Fresh Egg like a Mad Duck…

It’s probably a Mad Duck 😛

Why are we even debating this? It’s fake. period. I mean, it’s a tangible cartridge, and I don’t necessarily doubt that there’s a patched ROM on it, but it’s clearly not official.

Guys…report this.

This is a fakey, look at the label.

@lakituAl

such irony that today I found out my ‘Link to the Past’ cartridge was actually a fake.

no wonder four swords wouldn’t work with my friend…
(stupid ebay seller)

Definitely a flashcart inside a cartridge (Maybe an EZflash3in1). I have one that I put together myself. You’d have to be an idiot to sell one, though. Also, mine looks much nicer than his.

Also, I live in Shanghai, there’s a lot of bootleg GBA games available, although the gba has started to go out of fashion, so they’re harder to find now. I’ve never seen a bootleg Mother 3 anywhere, though.

Even if it’s a translated Mother 3, I wouldn’t buy it. Lots of bootlegs have issues with saving games and maintaining save data.

Nah.. not buying it ($51.00) 🙁

If Mother 3 were ever released in English, it probably would be rated M for Mature.

/\What?

I’ve reported the item. Given the absurdly low character limit for explanations, hopefully I got the point across.

Now, eBay is full of counterfeit stuff, so I don’t know how long it will take. That said, this is the most interesting “fake” item I’ve seen in a while. Usually it’s just obnoxiously bad copies of games from widely popular series.

Not cool! It’s so disconcerting to see people profiting off a fan translation project you worked so hard on!

Hopefully ebay does its job and pulls the auction.

It look’s like its down lot of people probably reported it Hahahaa

Hooray! Listing canceled. Justice done.

It’s still up at $56

I’m actually going to be surprised if it’s on youtube as a warning that it is a bootleg….

it says its already been removed =\

No one should waste their money on this. Just wait for eBay to pull it down.

Haha! Someone sent eBay an e-mail to tell that its fake! ( I do feel bad for that guy that bid $54.00 to try to win..)

ebay took it off.

If ebay wouldn’t of took it of someone would have bought it but you should do it leigly and buy a Japanese verson of the game,Get a rom,Then get the translation pack.I guess people are retarted and cant figure out how to do this for themselves so they spend a large amount of money on ebay to try to get a english translation.(No offence to anyone)

@Mr. Saturn fan
Actually, your method is still not “leigl”.

Also, it’s spelled “legal”.

Sucks it was removed, I would’ve loved to buy a English copy of Mother 3 on an actual GBA cart. 🙁

@K:
Mostly because of language, and sexual references.

That doesn’t make a lot of sense. If it was released in English (let’s say we luck out and it comes out on 3DS VC), the translation would be handled officially… Meaning they could censor all of that as they needed. There’s no “sexual references” that I recall, either, unless you count crossdressers (nothing sexual about them) and Kumatora’s costume (they can show her disliking it without having people ogling her).

I’d be more concerned with the fact that there’s a section of the game where heroes use hallucinogens (accidentally). Imagine all the gaming journalists: “Mario’s mushrooms don’t seem so innocent after Nintendo’s latest game!”

It is bootleg you idiots 🙂
but seriously, fake gba carts are very popular in china.

so yeah. your translation patched rom in a bootleg gba plastic cart.

Uhhh… there’s another one on eBay now, and its bids are already $51… :P.
Well, at least THIS one is from a trusted seller AND has MANY more pics of it. I’m gonna try to get it, cause I’m too lazy to do the work myself :D.

It’s here, but its coming down in 5 days, so you guys might not see it:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Earthbound-Mother-3-English-Edition-Limted-Edition-8-10-Fully-Playable-GBA-/190877539714?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item2c71301d82